You and Me
by TwistedSky
Summary: There's something symbolic about Michael being cleanshaven.


I disclaim. For forensicduck/whomever she wants to be now.

XXXXXX

It's predictable in a way.

Nikita destroys the last of the black boxes right in front of Percy, and it's still not over. She gives her signal for Ryan's team to come in and crack down on Division, and she just takes a moment to turn to Michael who is standing right next to Percy.

"You made a choice," she tells him. She doesn't have to explain herself, but she is.

He just stares back at her, and she can feel it in her soul—a sort of connection that can't be broken, and she realizes that the look on his face isn't one of hate. It's of sadness.

So when Ryan himself shows up and Nikita indicates that Birkhoff and Percy should be taken, she suggests that Michael be left with her.

And so they end up alone.

They stare at each other.

They say nothing.

Without words they step forward and meet each other in the middle of the room. Their eyes are locked, their bodies are so close they can practically feel the tension and heat rolling off of each other.

And finally Nikita just says, "It's over."

"It's not." He says simply, and she knows what he means. Nothing is over until Kasim is dead.

"This is over, Michael. But that—"she pulls something out of her jacket and hands it to him. "I know where he is."

He just stares at her, and she can't read his face—something she rather wishes she_could_ do.

"Come with me," he requests.

She nods.

XXXX

The death is clean and simple, not predicated on a need for a painful, revenge-worthy death.

They dispose of his body, and then Nikita takes his hand, pulling him with her—taking him home. To _his_ home—which she can't help herself but know the location of, and which she hadn't divulged the location of to the CIA.

It's a nice apartment in the city, with a beautiful view, something she imagines he doesn't get to see much of.

He opens up his door, and drops his things down, and Nikita notices how exhausted he is. He turns to her, and she can see it in his face.

They haven't talked about what this _means_ yet.

He walks off, and she shuts the door behind herself, dropping her own things down, weapons included because there's nothing left to fight anymore.

She walks up to him in his bedroom, and helps him take off his suit, his shoes. She pushes him gently down on the bed, and starts to tuck him in.

It's strange, but oddly nice.

"Stay," he says, and she doesn't hesitate. She crawls into bed with him, facing him. She grabs his hands and they stare at each other. She reaches over and strokes his cheek, moving her fingers over the roughness of his chin.

"When was the last time you shaved?" she jokes. She realizes that this is it in a way—he uses the gruff exterior to keep people away. He isn't the friendliest of people, and he doesn't invite friendship.

She'd been one of the few to get deeper than that—to get past that pain and harsh outer exterior, to see his kindness, the depth of his capability of love.

She remembers the day he told her about what happened to his family well, and she remembers when she 'accidentally' came across of picture of them as a family. He'd looked so happy, and he'd been so-clean shaven. He'd looked optimistic about life. He'd been . . . happy.

His wife and daughter had been beautiful, and it had pulled at her heart strings. She'd tried to get him to open up about it, and it had been an uphill battle.

When he'd finally opened up, he'd closed off soon after, pushing her out of his personal life, and she'd eventually stopped trying, especially after she met Daniel.

She thinks about how much things might have been better if he hadn't pushed her away, and if they could have been a team—but wishes about the past are irrelevant and mildly depressing, so she doesn't. She just stares at him, and realizes that his eyes have closed, and he's drifting off to sleep, so she just falls asleep with her hand in his.

XXXX

The next morning she wakes up in his bed alone, but she can hear water running in the bathroom that leads off from it. She looks around at his bedroom. She looks down at his blankets and thinks that he really needs more color in his life. And he's not the only one, she realizes. She does too.

Everything has been so dark and twisty and everything has just been so _hard_ that it's actually terrifying to take a moment to realize that she doesn't know what comes next.

She thinks about Alex, and searches for her phone—stashed handily in her jacket that she'd left next to the bed before climbing in. She looks to see that there's a text message from her about spending the day with Nathan, because without Division in the way she doesn't want to waste any more time. Nikita just smiles.

She sighs as she realizes her own love life needs a bit of fixing. She thinks about her recent rejection of Ryan, and how easily he'd taken it. She thinks about the fact that she's spent the last few years painfully in love with Michael, and about how much it hurts to know that she has no idea whether she's going to suffer from her own rejection soon enough.

Finally she just gets out of bed and walks over to the bathroom, and nudges the door open, and is surprised by what she sees.

He's shaving his face.

"I don't even know who you are anymore," she teases. She steps closer, and tweaks his nose playfully.

Suddenly her heart is free, and she feels like the pain of the last few years is finally lifting, and she feels playful.

He looks back at her, and it's obvious that he does too. He places the razor back on the side of the sink, and he suddenly sprays shaving cream on her like it's that silly string stuff or something. She yelps, and it isn't, so they both end up covered in shaving cream, and Michael's face is only halfway done.

She laughs at the two of them. He wraps her up in a hug and she swears she feels her heart stop.

They just stand there, two messes in the middle of his bathroom, and that's all that they need to be. When he pulls away, she grabs the razor and she finishes the job for him, and she feels like they're a team again—albeit a domestic sort of team, a thought she doesn't want to psychoanalyze, not right now.

They attempt to wipe themselves clean, and it doesn't go well, and Nikita ends up giggling like a schoolchild, and Michael just stares at her happily, looking younger and happier than she's ever seen him before.

And suddenly there's no more laughter, and she's in his arms, and her mouth is pressed against his and he smells like aftershave, and that's an amazing sort of smell, she barely manages to think before suddenly she feels his tongue in her mouth and thoughts are basically impossible.

His hands are in her hair, holding onto her as if for dear life, and she's holding him just as tightly, and suddenly they pull apart and just look at each other breathlessly.

Michael smiles slightly, leaning against her and whispering in her ear, "I love you."

She's waited forever to hear that. "I love you too."

She's waited even longer to say that.

She reaches her hand up to stroke his soft face, perfectly shaven. She doesn't ask why, she doesn't need to. The answer is her, because of her. Because of him. Because it's time to move on, and heal, and he can't stay closed off forever, and that's okay.

She presses her lips to his again and feels his smile against her own.

"We're a bit of a mess," he says when they pull apart again.

"I think we should—" she smiles seductively, "Take a shower."

"Oh, do you?" a glint in his eyes that makes her want to jump his bones then and there.

"Oh, I do." She smiles, kissing him again. Her voice is husky, "I _really_ do."

It's a symbolic sort of moment, the sort of moment that means that things have changed-and in the end that's exactly what it needs to be, they might have thought.

But sex pretty much pwns thought.


End file.
